Read What Is Negative And Positive Toe And How It Effects Your Car’s Tire Life
One thing that can be really annoying when you are doing your normal everyday driving is when your car starts to pull to one side. You are cruising at a normal speed, and you continuously feel like your car is going to left or right side, and you continuously have to correct the steering. It can frustrate a driver and make otherwise a pleasurable drive, miserable.
This usually happens when the alignment of our car is out. There are few factors the alignment technician reviews when he is fix it for you. Those include, the castor angle of the strut, the toe in and toe out of wheels (especially front wheels), the negative and positive camber and few others like turning radius etc.
In this article, we will discuss about what is toe in and toe out of the wheels, and in next article, we will talk a little about the negative and positive cambers.
Also Read: Why Is Wheel Balancing Required
What is Toe
The toe in or toe out of the wheel is to check if the tire is rotating straight ahead when car is traveling in a straight forward motion. Imagine there is center line of a car that divides the car in two equal halves, length wise. When you sit on your knees right in front of your car, facing the bonnet, and look at the wheel, if its turned towards the inside of the car or the center line of the car, meaning the front edge of the tire is slightly towards the engine side of the car, it means the wheel is toe in or positive toe. And if the edge of the wheel is protruding towards the outside of the car, or away from the center line, it means the wheel is toe out or negative toe.
Effects of Toe
Negative and positive toe, both have different effects on the handling and stability of the car, and also the wear and tear of the tires. As far as tires are concerned, excessive toe in will make the tire to scrub on the outboards and will shorten your car’s tire life.
Too much toe out will make the inboard edges of the tires to wear out. In ideal conditions, the toe should be kept zero, for minimum and even tire wear.
Look at the diagram below, and you will be able to understand it fully.
